 All right. Well, first of all, I want to thank you in the music department for giving us the opportunity, of course, Lisa, that makes us always look good with this discussion and records for the archives. Such an important thing, right? Because we had in the past huge maestros now talking about different, not only mentorship, but what it meant to be for them. Artists and musicians and all that, that helped also the younger ones or the younger players like my student here, Jesse. But I think that today is about starting a conversation. I mean, me, and I'm sure you're wanting to as musicians who are kind of foreign, that we came here and now we call New Orleans home. Being able to fit in has been very easy, right? This is a city of music lovers. So we came here. I don't know. You can talk about your experience, but my experience that I came over here and I felt the love for music of all the people of New Orleans. Maybe not as much classical guitar or classical music, but music in general. And that helps because it helps you also have a broader understanding of your profession and your musicianship. Being able to play, even I don't consider myself a jazz player, but being able to play with jazz musicians had also opened my understanding of music and my approach. So I think that's, for me, it's liberating and it's fun. It's a way to connect with the community too. So the reflection was, I would like to know more about guitar in New Orleans, right? And I was trying to find out, I was trying to ask questions, and I couldn't find much about anything that was already published or written about the history of the guitar in New Orleans. I think this are six New Orleans International Guitar Festival, the first one coming out of the pandemic. I thought that it would be great for this kind of like renaissance to kind of start the conversation for this to be recorded, of course. And now that I have also John Rankin here, so what better way to start a conversation about the history of guitar in New Orleans or whatever their experiences are. I think that when we talk about history, the best way to record it, the best way to talk about it is with living experiences like these, right? And also our own experiences of people that came from other countries and we kind of like adapted also into the musical scene here in New Orleans. So I have also Matt. Matt is the study person for folk and roots music and all that. So maybe you want to start any kind of question, any kind of conversation? Well, I have sort of 10 minutes to talk a little bit about some aspects of guitar in New Orleans if you want me to just go do that. Okay, so we could do that. I don't want to take too long. Okay, so Matt, if you don't know him, he's a professor here at Tulane. And also I have Carla Blanc and I have John Rankin. These are the real New Orleansians, right? We are here the imposters. Not really, but Joani is also now in the in the guitar department and he's a Brazilian guitarist. And so that's what we kind of want to do. I want to hear their own experiences. I'm sure that everybody has questions, you know, because the first thing that comes to mind is New Orleans is the musical city, right? So what's happening with guitar, right? Okay, so go on if you want. Cool, cool, yeah. And, you know, Javier asked me to do this and I said, I really don't know anything about this specifically except that I play guitar and I moved to New Orleans in 97. And I've studied the music here, I guess, for 25 years now, which is crazy. And as a guitarist, as you walk around this city, I think you see a couple of things. And I don't mean to marginalize the guitar anyway, but I think that the guitar has maybe struggled in New Orleans a little bit to find its place, right? This is a music town, but it's not a big guitar town. It's really a horn and drum town and a little bit of a piano town. And those of us, those of you who are guitarists who've tried to make it, you could speak to that better than me. But I wanted to talk a little bit throughout history when the guitar and the banjo as well kind of show up and carve out a space. So if we went back to the late 1800s, in addition to the emergence of jazz, you had a time in New Orleans and throughout the south where there were a lot of what were called string bands, right? Which were, you know, violin-based, but also guitar-based music ensembles that would play written and improvised music. And the guitar really had a spot there. And as jazz began to emerge, the guitar would appear in some of those ensembles. So actually the first picture we have of Buddy Bolden from 1906 or so. Buddy Bolden as the kind of agreed upon first jazz musician, though that's maybe not always agreed upon. But in the picture is Willie Cornish on guitar, right? And looking back on it, it seems unusual. But there were violin players in jazz too. And what happened in 1917 when the first jazz recording was made by the original Dixieland Jazz Band, and it was horns and drums and bass and piano, that really helped kind of solidify what the New Orleans Jazz Ensemble was supposed to be. And the violin went away. So there's an interesting story, for example, about Manuel Manetta. They call him Fess Manetta. He kind of puts down his violin at that point and switches over to piano. And so the place for the guitar instrument from that point on in the 20s really switches over to the banjo. And I think it's mostly because the banjo is louder. And so these New Orleans, you know, strumming musicians pick the banjo because it can project more because of the resonator. But they do something I think pretty unique in the United States, which is they tune it like a guitar. So the banjo throughout the South and Appalachia where we associate it with is tuned differently. But in New Orleans, people like Johnny St. Cyr at Narvin Kimball, who I think you knew you worked with, right? I believe they would tune it like a guitar and then strum it with the left-hand patterns that we associate with the guitar. And then they could easily go back and forth. And I think for a lot of us who were lucky to see him, like Danny Barker, was probably the great kind of ambassador of that tradition and Carl as well up until the edge of the 20th century. So it's unique at that time. Big bands were taken off in the United States. The electric guitar came in. So you have people like Charlie Christian, you know, strumming and these big bands in other places. In New Orleans, if you were known for traditional jazz, it really stayed with the banjo in that spot. So sometimes if you go to Preservation Hall or the Palm Court and you see these traditional ensembles, that banjo will still be there. Yeah, so a few other people I wanted to mention is one is there was an incredible musician named Lonnie Johnson, who was born in New Orleans I think in 1899. Great guitarist and violinist and left New Orleans and became associated with blues music. But to me he's really an example of a type of guitar player in New Orleans, which is he could play anything. I mean, he could play ragtime, he could play modern jazz, he could play blues. And I think that type of player crops up again and again in New Orleans. John and Carl, Walter Wolfman, Washington, trying to think of who else kind of fits that bill. Don Vappy. The people who, you might show up on a gig on Tuesday night and they're playing straight blues and you show up on Wednesday night and they're playing contemporary jazz music. People in New Orleans musicians say music for all occasions and how many times do we go out in New Orleans and you see you all chatting, you walk on stage, so what are we playing tonight? Someone counts one, two, three, four and the band comes in, right? So yeah, I think in terms of the kind of musical analysis aspect of it, I think one thing we know as guitarists is we're responsible for the harmony, for the chord changes. And so the guitar is equivalent to the piano in that way and then different from the many, many other instruments of New Orleans music that play melodically but don't support the group. So you also see a lot of solo guitarists just like solo pianists out on a gig, right? And that, of course, not too many of us want to go here like a solo trumpet player playing alone all night long, right? But you'll see, and I think that's a particular type of musical mindset where you've got to be able to entertain people as one musician and so you've got to be able to play harmony and melody. You've got to be able to know a large amount of repertoire. It's almost, you know, we say idiomatic. The guitar is idiomatic in that way in that we wind up doing certain things that maybe a pianist can do but not too many other people do. So yeah, the only other traditions I was going to draw attention to is we do have a great blues tradition in New Orleans. Freddie King today but also going back to Snooks Eaglin when I moved here was ending his career. There was a guy named Guitar Slim back in the 50s who everyone would talk about, you know, played the screaming blues music. He had a 100 foot long guitar cable and you hear all these stories about him going out into the audience and the dew drop in and out until the Sal Street, you know, ripping these kind of guitar solos. And there are guitarists like that today in New Orleans. I call them the sort of showboaters. Anders Osborn, Jr. Magici, the radiators, some other real screaming guitar players. But without criticizing them at all, I think New Orleans is maybe more known for really tasteful musicians that, guitar players that kind of serve the song and don't necessarily overplay that aren't playing, you know, three or four minute epic distorted guitar solos. That's not really the New Orleans way. The New Orleans way is you find your place in the ensemble. You serve the song, the singer, the soloist. And when it's your turn, you step up, you know. And so I think, again, of Earl King, Leo Nocentelli, Joy Clark is a great guitar player out today. And again, you know, these musicians here where that to me is the kind of mainstream guitar tradition in New Orleans. You know, maybe not as famous as the trumpet players and the pianists and the drummers. But musicians who are total, complete musicians that really serve what's called for at any gig. That's wonderful. That sets up a little bit about my intention to ask all three of our guests about their own musical experience. I want to start with Carl. Carl, I would love to know your experiences, like your first musical experiences, even with the guitar. How was, what were you, how was it growing up, you know? The first musical experiences, I guess the operative term would be musical. Because when I got the guitar, it was harder than I thought it would be, right? So for the first two years, the guitar was in the case under the bed, you know, until the guys in the neighborhood realized that I had a guitar. And I had already learned how to tune it. I went to Ace Music School on the streets, on Zaga and Russia Blade Street. And I think Daryl Levine's father was teaching me guitar. And I got through Little Brown Jug and some songs like that. But it wasn't until the guys that were going to Joseph S. Clarke, they had a band called The Sonics. And I was in about seventh grade at Carpus Christi. And their guitar player quit Pete Adams, who's the nephew of Justin Adams. So he quit the band and they had a gig that weekend so they can't mix my mother. Can I come play with him? And she said, well, take care of my son, Kenneth, you know. And that's when it was my introduction into New Orleans Music, playing at clubs like the Wonderful Boys Club. And they had really a fertile environment to just gig. Where I grew up in the seventh ward on what is today, A.P. Touro. It was called London Avenue there where the London Canal is at the end of that street. But from my house there was the Autocrat Club and on the corner juries. Down this way, the Pentagon Hall and LaShad Boutie which later became Club 2004. And then there was the Celebrity which is now Bertha's. And just, there was about five or six clubs walking distance from my front door. You know, I could almost see them. And so I was able to go to those clubs and ask musicians, you know, what's that you're doing? Show me how to do that. Because I got a little older, they would say, come on in, you can play a song or two. And so my first musical experiences in New Orleans would have to be, I'd say, being taken under the wing by some musicians who saw something in me and decided that they would give me some time. So the musical instruction they would get was by going to these places and asking, just I want to know what, you know, how to play what you are playing. Did you get the support from your family that, or how was that when you started with it? You said you had a guitar already, so how was that provided to you? I got the guitar. No one in my family played music. My dad said he had a sister who played violin but they had moved to California. So I didn't have anyone, I didn't have a musical family like the Marcelluses or the Nevels, the long line of everyone in the family being able to play. But there were people in the neighborhood, Louis Barbaran, Paul Barbaran's brother, Isidore Barbaran's son, Danny Barker's first cousin, they lived right around the corner. So Louis would sit me down and try to show me some chords. But he was a drummer, so he really couldn't show me a lot about guitar. But I'm sorry, what was the question again? Not just that, like how was the support that you got from your family? The environment, I'm really interested as being African-American growing up. What were the experiences? Were you limited at any point to pursue that musical dream? No, not limited at all, I would even say propelled. Because as you were walking down, they had all these musicians, they were getting bands together. Everybody had a band in each neighborhood, every high school and you walked down the street, you hear somebody knock on the door. Hey, my name's Carl, they'd let you in the living room and before you know it, you could play with their band. If you knew the songs and could play with them, you were included. It was a community where the music was not hoarded like this is mine. It was like, okay, the music is for us all. And I guess they could bring that to a sort of African tradition where there's a song for each ceremony. There's a song for a wedding, I knew that was going to happen, excuse me. Great ringtone. My daughter, I'll call her back. Okay, there's a song for a wedding, here comes the bride. There's a song for a birthday, you know, happy birthday. But in Africa there's a song for the sun when it comes up. There's a song for when it rains, you know. So the music is more than just for entertaining and it's a part of everyday life. There's a song to wash your clothes, you know, there's a song to cut the potatoes. And so I think in New Orleans the music was more a part of everyday life than... Now my generation was a little different because I was born in 55. So when I started playing music it was the 60s and that was the heyday of the guitar. And every song, every record came to a climax with the screaming guitar solo, you know, like the rock, you know. But rock and roll was the palette on which guitar music was founded. But classical guitar music, I did study when I got to college. I studied for a few years with Mr. Barrario, Elias Barrario. And he opened my eyes with the first thing he told me was, I'm not going to promise you that you'll ever be a famous guitarist because there's people who've been practicing this music since they were children, you know. And I was like in my 20s by this time, he said, but I can teach you some things and what he did show me was, well first of all finger picking style, I had never done that. I had always played with the plectrum, but being able to use all my fingers was introduced to that through classical music repertoire. And then also technique because being a self-taught musician, I had never thought of the logical or the most sensible way to finger or to maneuver around the neck of the guitar, you know. It was just okay, I know I had to play this note, I had to play this chord and however I got there as long as I got there on time with the rest of the band because it was just, and I tell my students today that they learn in the classroom like Giovanni and they have the students at NOCA and everything. Learning in the classroom is one thing, but I learned music in the ballroom like it was supposed to be learned, not in the classroom, you know. So it was like trial and error and in New Orleans you said black music, the black community would have no problem telling you, nobody would want to hear that, put the jukebox on, you know. If they didn't like what you were doing, they didn't have a problem letting you know, so you had to satisfy the audience being entertainer and, yeah, you know, like so the history of the musicians that I heard in my lifetime influenced how I play and I can't really say I tried to sound like anybody else because like you mentioned before, in fact you talked about a lot of stuff I was going to talk about, I should have went before you. But, yeah, I never had a job other than playing music, so being able to play in all these different situations with whoever called you, that's important to New Orleans musician, you have to know how to play high-brow music or blues music or whatever you call it to play if that's what's putting bread on the table. And a lot of times I'll find myself on jobs where I really didn't want to be there, but I had to do it to eat, so I'd be like, what time is this going to be over with? And those were some of the jobs, but I wouldn't change any of it because I did learn so much just being in New Orleans and performing the style of music that New Orleans brought to the guitar. The rhythms, you can tell the rhythms of New Orleans music are so different from rhythms anywhere else, you know, maybe South American and Mexican, South American rhythms, you can see it, the African rhythms, you can see it a little bit, but the New Orleans rhythmic concept is the foundation of all American music, the blues, the rock and roll, it all comes from that rhythm, and so the guys that I had a chance to hear were influenced by people like Papus, who was Fats Domino's first guitar player, and the whole while I was with Fats Domino's band, he was always telling me, he was trying to get me to play this rhythm that Papus used to play, and as close as I always, I sit there for an hour and he would just be doing it and I would be doing, and I think I had, I had it, that's not it yet, and you know, I don't think I ever got it, you know, but that's why sometimes he would have three or four guitar players on the stage with him while he's performing, because I think he was always searching for that sound that Papus had. You mentioned Snooks, I remember going down the street one day and passing the club and I heard a band inside and I opened the door and it wasn't a band, it was Snooks by himself, you know, he's playing the bass line, he's playing the chords, he's singing, he's stomping on the floor like a bass drum, from the outside he sounded like a whole band, you know, so playing solo guitar was an option. I played at Lou and Charlie's, my first solo place, Charlie let me play there, I must have been about 17, 18 and he let me play there. But Earl King, look, this is a list of the ones, I just put together a list of guitar players from New Orleans, Papus, Irving Bannister, Buddy Charles, who's Irving Charles' father, Andrew Phillips, who played on Upoopidoo, Earl McClain, Leroy H., Guitar Ray, Earl King, you know, Roy Montreal, okay, they call him a devil, Roy. And some people say he was the best guitar player. Guitar Slim, the things I used to do. Curtis Treveen, his sister Andre Treveen was a newscaster here and his mother didn't let me talk to him because she thought that if anybody brought a guitar around that would bring him into relapse mode, so she ran me away, you know, get away from here with that guitar. But Justin Adams, of course, Snooks Eaglin, and George Davis, who I took lessons with, George Davis left New Orleans and went to New York and played on Broadway for years, but I took lessons from him on telephone and this was before they had smartphones with videos, Zoom and all of that, so I'd wait until after nine o'clock when the prices went down for long distance, right? And I called him and then I put the phone there and I'd play and he would just tell me what to do and listen to what I was doing. And I took a few lessons from George Davis like that, long distance lessons, but these musicians had no problems in sharing their experiences and their knowledge with younger musicians. That's wonderful. You talked about Elias Barrero. Elias Barrero is the very reason probably that we are here. Elias Barrero was the founder of the guitar program here at Tulane. He started in 1967, so that was even before I was born and I'm old. So 40 plus years of establishing a guitar program here. I know that John, you had a personal and a professional relationship with him as a student as well. What was it growing up in New Orleans having another type of guitarist, right? In this case, a classical guitarist that took lessons with Segovia a concert of classical music playing. Growing up? Yeah. Well, I grew up when Elias came here. I was already in college, my second year of college at USL. So I moved here in 1959 and I got involved with guitar because of Peter Paul Mary and the Kingston Trio. I mean, I'm that far back. But my mom was one of the four founding members of the Jazz Archives here, which was an oral history archive founded in 1957 by a Ford Foundation grant when oral history was becoming an important aspect to history. And Bill Russell, who is a great guy who bought me my first guitar and fixed it, my second guitar. And Paul Crawford, who was a trombonist from Eastman. And my mom and let's see who had to leave it. Oh, Dick Allen was the curator. So she took me to a lot of jazz funerals and down to Preservation Hall in the early years of that. And I really came back to that music later. When I was in my teens and twenties, I was listening to modern jazz and New Orleans rhythm and blues. And it turns out Allen II Saint was my hero at that time. I didn't know him. I had never played with him at that time. And I just love the sound of the piano. You know, I love those arrangements and I felt it. And I left for years. So when I came back at the age of 29 to study with Elias and he, I was a fingerstyle player and I had learned a lot of classical pieces strictly on my own. And so you can imagine. I know Carl can imagine. You know, I had some work to do. And he was a very tough teacher. I'll say he was very strict and didn't take any deviation from his plan. And I should say too, he helped me incredibly to organize my techniques. And Carl said, I changed everything. And I found over time that the music that I was drawn to, even as a teenager, had the chord changes of New Orleans jazz. You know, so I learned Winding Boy from Dave Van Rond, the New York blues guitarist. And I didn't know it was Jilly Roe Morton. I just said, man, I love the chords on this song. And I used to love, my mom would record albums from the jazz archives. So I got exposed to Jesse Fuller, who was actually from Georgia, but he was a one-man band who wrote very ragtime type changes and songs and played the 12th string. So I kind of came to New Orleans. When I came back, it kind of coalesced. I realized I was super involved with New Orleans music, but hadn't really studied it. So then I worked backwards from there. And after I went to business school from my marketing professor, it helped me realize that I was really what they call a niche marketer and that my real focus should be really on playing solo guitar in this town, fingerstyle or like a really average piano player. Right? Yes. So that's a short short. Yeah, but also Elias created the opportunity for some musicians in the city to be exposed to great performers like Manuel Barreco. We're just talking because we have Manuel Barreco play the first concert of our festival. And you also had a relationship of playing master classes for him and Sharon Isman and a whole bunch of other guitars that were very important as a reference in the world, right? Well, when I went to school at USL, I majored in theory and composition because there were no guitar programs. And also I didn't know anything about the formal structure of music. So I studied every instrument but guitar, except I took some jazz lessons privately with Bobby Brooks over there, who was kind of a Johnny Smith style player. I didn't really realize how unique Elias was until I studied with him for a while to get all those master classes. He had Juan Marcadal. I mean, there was a master class or two every year. And he had the concert series where he brought in four guitars every year. They're sponsored by the university. And he had two in the fall and two in the spring. The GFA winner would come in. So there was a concert series here. And he did all that. He was not renumerated for that. He did that for his love of the guitar. And he recorded every single event and was so active in it. And again, he wasn't paid for that. That was all love. So that's been a resource to all musicians in New Orleans for the entire time he talked, which was, let's see, 40, 50 years? Well, over 40 years. Yeah. Over 40 years. Yeah. Amazing. And talking to him, I spent on the phone like 45 minutes a couple days ago just to get a little bit of his own timeline here in New Orleans. When he got here in 1967, he said, or a bit before that, that there was no classical guitar player, of course. There was Flamenco then. Right. So he was invited to play a concert at Loyola and that's where they discovered him. So he quickly got hired to be a teacher here and to be a professor. And over the years, like you said, well, not only with his own students but also bringing first class guitars from around the world, he kind of like enriched finally the classical guitar scene, I should say, here. And also, and this is the very reason we're here today because I mean I was hired by him and we started working together and once he retired, I started with the idea of bringing back that guitar series while this festival that we have now where Carl played our first one and where Don Vapi also performed guitar and banjo and I wanted to talk about that a little bit. But also, Ioannis is part of the guitar festival. He's been part of it every year. And I want to hear from Ioannis too, your perspective as a Brazilian coming from Brazil is so rich and important. I mean, coming to the jazz capital of the world, right? Why was it important? What kind of situation you found yourself in when you came and you went to study at UNO with Steve Masakowski and all these things? My experience with jazz music started in 2007 I would say and I was already in the conservatory education for a good five years studying classical music, classical guitar and working with music theory and composition harmony. But I had a teacher that introduced me to what he called the history, aesthetics and language of jazz. It was a very comprehensive class that he would just show us the trajectory he had like that tree. The jazz tree that starts with blues and goes all the way up to modern jazz and he would just show us records. He would have us read stuff and that's my first experience formally with jazz and that kind of pointed me out to test the kind of music I want to play because even though I grew up in Brazil listening to music of Brazil and all sorts of popular music and classical music from Brazil when I started doing the classical education they started kind of imprinting in me this very conservative and racist ideology of like it's more kind of like a hygienist like eugenics in music you can't really focus on popular music because popular music is not music it's only classical music. If you're going to play Brazilian music Vila Lobos or all the other composers from that specific time that did not... It's ironic that Vila Lobos will play choros in the... But the stylized music he kind of like classified if you can use that word made the short music sound classical because he kind of like formalized it but long story short I visited New Orleans for the first time in 2012 after graduating from college and classical guitar and being very frustrated with the lack of possibility of working with guitar in Brazil you know classically and by then I was already playing jazz I thought I was playing jazz and my focus was you know I'm not going to play Brazilian music because a lot of people that do it better than me I'm going to focus on jazz because that's kind of a niche and I can become somebody playing it so I had the opportunity to come to New Orleans and he was playing at the time with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and I saw one of the showcases at what nowadays is called the jazz playhouse used to be the Irving Mayfield Playhouse at the Royal Sinesta on Bourbon Street and I just looked him up you know because one thing that is very prominent I think in terms of like the history of the guitar is that like early on although you have a lot of like white characters within the music itself and there are ones that are project forward as important in the history of the instrument a lot of the first guitarists in the history of like New Orleans jazz as you see pictures of it you know have a lot of black folk on and off, on and off and then just like researching a little bit of New Orleans you know I couldn't really find a lot of black guitarists being portrayed you know like forefront in terms of like you know what is the face of guitar in New Orleans today and when I saw Colla Blanc he was like hmm I haven't seen this guy and none of the researchers I did so I searched out his name and finding his name online and his biography I just like contacted him and was like man like can you know can I go see you play somewhere he played at the Mount Elion with Chris Severin and Jerry? Jerry yeah on drums so I asked him like can I can I take a lesson from you like you know I'm a guitarist you know just like I love to like learn some jazz stuff you know like the New Orleans stuff that you play on your guitar you know like a lot of really really modern language on the instrument I've never seen in person or never really heard anything like that you know so he he said like come to my house tomorrow and we can talk about it you know I can give you a lesson sit down he tells me like play what you got like I still had a lot of the the classical stuff fresh in my hands like I played all the classical repertoire I had good like what's the jazz stuff they have played all that too like good you know like I really like the stuff you play but like you said from Brazil but you don't really play any Brazilian music do you play Brazilian music because like we as Americans and jazz musicians we love Brazilian music I would love to see you play some Brazilian music if you if you don't mind it's like you know I didn't have anything expressive or on the same length of like dedication that I had to like jazz music I thought I knew how to play in classical so the lesson he gave me is like that's the thing I'm going to tell you you know it's like you play jazz you play you know classical why don't you blend these two styles of music and focus on the music of your country because like as somebody from the culture you are and you know like and you were black men from Brazil you know it's like most of Brazilian music is black music why don't you play that kind of like it's what brought me to New Orleans I would say like five years later when I moved here kind of prepared to face the possibilities of not only you know focus on jazz but also being somebody who can defend himself playing the music that's culturally relevant for me you know and like as you said you might be received as a welcoming when you get to the city but sometimes it's like it's tricky because you might be welcomed to do the like non-paying gigs here and like you have to fight for space on the music scene if you're not expressive or if you don't have like too much of a name or you don't have the right connections and that's something that I faced when I first moved here and I was even like considering not focusing on music too much in 2015 like just like taking any gig possible just to give my name out and it's like it's the thing that people do you know you get in you sit in and you get known and you play with people and you like spread out the word that you like you can play it even if you can't so you just like learn on the spot and just like start to develop not only the network but also the ability to be kind of a jack of all trades because like professors like Akini said there were situations and also that like you are in gigs that like I've never played this kind of music before but it's the call you have to make that money and have to put the bread on the table played Bulgarian music played Jewish music never played Jewish music before I played music from Morocco I played Cuban music played you know and as a guitarist from Brazil I got labeled the guitarist from Brazil so a lot of times I will be forced to play the song from Brazil that everybody wants to play which is the Go For Mi Ponima and that's like it's a blessing and a curse because as Carl said that there is a specific rhythm to New Orleans music that you gotta know it to play it properly there is music like any ethnic music they do have their own accent and that's something that whenever I'm required or forced or coerced to play the music with musicians from here there's a lack of knowledge about what this rhythm is for Brazilian music so that in itself created the spark for the research I do in my doctoral program right now which is just like the search for the groove and what it's missing and why it misses like that just like working with music accent and all each one of you guys brought your challenges your experiences and I think that we could pick any of the little points that we've heard today and make another conversation I think that this is a great way to start and we missed a lot we've been talking for just an hour but we're missing so so much but I think that it's a great opportunity that we come together in this festival where we have visitors from Spain they're gonna be performing tomorrow and from Cuba Miami and I think it's great that we showcase our own treasure that's the music in New Orleans the guitar in New Orleans that has a definite space and I think it's important that now we can kind of like make it official that we have this you know, colleague thing going on and that we can talk about proudly about our roots here as Forans or as New Orleans in this case I just want to thank everybody I want to make sure that you guys if you have any questions at all please this is the time Brenda, the questions I wrote you know No, I was just going to say maybe you can introduce each one of them like by name so that it's supported Yes, so on my left I have guitarist John Rankin on my right I have guitarist Giovanni Santos and I have Carla Blanc which we are honoring this year he decided to retire we don't believe it because he just told me yesterday he was working on a little tune he sat on the piano he's like this is the tune I'm coming up with you know, just yesterday and he started making so beautiful music and Matt Saigakini is here representing also and I'm Javier Alondo been here for quite a while now 15 years and so I'm just thrilled and happy that we have this opportunity to bring wonderful musicians to this festival and also the conversation and I'm sorry, I'm Lisa from the library if you have questions please speak into the mic for the recording okay, so into the mic okay so we heard a lot of really like amazing history about the African American music tradition from Mr. Leblanc which was really it was fascinating on the side of Latin American music like from Mr. Santos I feel like and also talking about Professor Barrero as well I feel like we heard kind of these anomalous stories almost and maybe I'm misinterpreting that I don't mean to suggest something that's not true but that was the impression that came to me was that there are these pop-ups or pockets of culture that get expressed but I do know there's a huge Latin American population in New Orleans and I don't know how connected individual communities are within that population but I'd just be interested to hear more is there a musical culture that's kind of widespread across that community a bit that you've picked up on or that you've been a part of that might be comparable or in some ways to the African American community in that tradition I'm just interested to hear more about that side of things So I can talk a bit and then you guys can come up with your own experiences The Latin American community here is more of a Central American community from Honduras Mexico there's very incredible musicians that have worked in the quarter and they also have worked with American bands I'm thinking of Roberto Chueto I'm thinking of Julien César which are from Guatemala like Brenda and wonderful musicians also drum players and they bring their own genres of course like Honduras Punta they do their own type of music like in my case Cuban music salsa and all that so there is a space for that too but there is also a space for us to include other musicians like in my band my horn players are from here they're not Cuban that also gives the opportunity of anybody else to learn a little bit of my culture my Cuban music or his Brazilian music so I think that for more than everybody is doing their own background music or their own national music where they come from we're in New Orleans so we get that melting pot that always is going to try to make us change a little bit or adapt with what we have and what we're working with and that's wonderful because then the music evolves in a different way I was just going to mention historically that Jelly Roll Morton referred to the Spanish tinge which is that kind of the rhythm a lot of us at one two three one two three one two and that relates back to early history in New Orleans of the Haitians that were thrown out of Cuba during the Napoleonic era that moved to New Orleans I think it was some of like 9,000 peoples about a third of the population at the time so the French Quarter is mostly Spanish on the architecture and because of the fires and a lot of the maybe the shotgun houses that's still debatable but I think the level of Latin influence on the New Orleans music is really profound and I think that's what makes it so unique in the States the interpretation through that when I was growing up Flamenco music was really big in this town and there were many many Flamenco players and now there's much less was it Carlos Sanchez he was here for a long time he played various concerts I sponsored him at Loyola once and before that there were many players a lot of those graduated on to classical or jazz and moved away when I became an English teacher I think I don't know if that was in other areas as well but historically there were waves of migration and immigration from Latin America to New Orleans being a port city and then you have Venice and the exploitation put together by the by the United Fruit Company that's in itself it's one of the things and New Orleans being the hub and being right and basically the gate of the United States through the Mississippi River have a lot of people from that region just like being here because of that specific history and moving forward I'm not really sure about the in-betweens from that to Katrina but talking about the Brazilian population in New Orleans for Katrina after the destruction caused by the the breakage of the library you had Brazilian people around 6000 people like towards the end of 2005 beginning of 2006 come to New Orleans to rebuild the city so you do have the presence of I would say the largest amount of Brazilian people that came at one time in New Orleans historically at that specific point and people left afterwards but a lot of folks stayed around and as of right now I don't know how big the Brazilian population is in town but you do have kind of a hub and whenever some like the Samba event and more like events kind of related to popular music happen you do have a lot of these people come out I'm going to give a shout out to the Venezuelans in New Orleans there's some fabulous Venezuelan musicians here as well yes, yes, absolutely Emanuel Ateara has been part of our festival as well playing Venezuelan music with Yulene so that's wonderful to be able to include that piece I'm glad the question of the Spanish tinge came up I can plug, I teach a class the Latin tinge that talks about all these things and a great source on it is the former Hogan Jazz Archive director Bruce Rayburn wrote a book wrote an article beyond the Spanish tinge that according to his estimates which are very much based on kind of meticulous primary sources he with a kind of broad definition of Latin that included the Isleños so people from the Canary Islands that have such a long history here in the city or outside the city in St. Bernard Parish and then also people like Jelly Rollmorton with Haitian descent he estimated that it was 24% of the the first generation of jazz performers so that it's baked in right it's not just a tinge I guess is like the theme of the semester as we go along and read the different sources but actually Carl I had a question for you I loved so much the discovery of Voyager performance at the Music Box Village and it was from there that I learned that you had a connection with Sun Ra and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about so you played with Sun Ra yes I played with Sun Ra for eight years when I graduated sooner I found out that my teacher Kid Jordan Edward Jordan had performed with the Sun Ra Orchestra in 1955 the year that I was born so he introduced me to Sun Ra and I got so many Sun Ra stories that would take a whole week but yeah I've done quite a few recordings with him there's some videos online Chicago Fast 81 you can see me intermittently that was a big learning experience in my life I guess I could say I learned more from Sun Ra than I did from anybody from everybody else all together in my life because he would rehearse eight ten hours a day that they were rehearsing I'd like to comment on something y'all were talking about with the Latin tinge and the South American music y'all of course y'all as educators know that that can't be separated from the African rhythms right that doesn't need to be said but the New Orleans rhythm the closest I get to it is like nine pound triplets three against two like if you have the one, two one, two and you put the triplets against that it comes out to that's pretty much how the New Orleans rhythm is built on that and it goes by many names you know Legba the Bambula all those different names for that rhythm but it crosses the culture African diaspora I remember Don Bappy in the conversation in one of his concerts with the audience he would say just that as a kid he would go on the bus ride and he's like that sense of syncopation we all have that brings you also joy and excitement right I wanted to say something we haven't mentioned one of the great guitars who's Catherine Hobgood Ray just wrote a book about Snoozer Quinn and Snoozer was basically unknown here and pretty much everywhere he recorded a death bed recording in 1949 that Johnny Wiggs the trumpet player did while he was in I'm not sure if it's charity hospital some hospital but he played with Paul Whiteman a finger style player with a unique technique where he instead of playing alternating bass with his thumb he would brush the chord he would play the four beat of a swing feel with his thumb and play melody on top of it it was a very very complex style and the book and Brian Prunker did a bunch of transcriptions of the music and it was a the recording was sold by a tax accountant in Nassos West Virginia and it was recently reissued as a CD in the last four years so if you love guitar and finger style guitar he is a unique anomaly in the history of finger style Snoozer Quinn and also Matt mentioned Lonnie Johnson who is greatly underrated as a finger style player this guy that I've heard on recordings to Ben Strings he was a really fine blues like pentatonic soloist who recorded with Louis Armstrong Mahogany Hallstomp for example and he was an incredible finger style player and most of the modern finger style movement starts with Mississippi John Hurt and it's kind of the folk ideal of it but Lonnie Johnson was way beyond that in terms of his technique and ability he was an astounding player it's like listening to Django Reinhardt you just can't believe that it's there great player I'm glad for our visitors that always listen or hear about jazz and then you're here in New Orleans and also discovering some other name not only Django Reinhardt like Lonnie Johnson and other people that were part of the musical scene here in the city the city is that it's the music is organic here if you go to New York there's a lot of really studied people but here it grows up in a family sense like Carl was talking about even though it wasn't his family it was families that he was pulled into and that's what's astounding about this city it's just part of the fabric all of you play guitar so who influenced you the most if you could only pick one person who influenced you the most and I'd like to hear from everybody how does somebody pick one person yeah that's right I know it's hard but if you had to pick someone was it like the first person you heard playing guitar or was it somebody that you studied under or was it somebody that you like to listen to see that's two different questions the person who influenced you might not be the person who you like but I mean who you like the most because I liked people like John McLaughlin and Hendricks the most but then the person that influenced me the most I would say that point in direction where I thought my voice would have to be Benson who was like the next generation of West Montgomery who was the next generation of Charlie Christian so I mean it's kind of hard like he said I'd have to say Benson I guess before before the commercial market Benson George? Yes I was just listening to him this morning well I started out similar to Carl where someone got me a guitar and it sat for like a year or two and I didn't know what to do with it and I went to finally get lessons with a guitar teacher in my hometown Doug Hartwell and then later a classical guitarist named Peter Clemente in my hometown and I had a school teacher named Miss Giannini who taught music theory and I think having moved to New Orleans in some sense that's a very typical way for an American kid to get started as a teacher to kind of lift you up and I think sometimes in New Orleans people talk about New Orleans like everything is so natural like you grow up here and you know you come out of the womb going you know like Carl's ringtone you know like somehow you're just born here and you're a great musician and I like Javier was talking about Elias Barrero and so was Carl I really try to draw attention to those educators that if you see that interest in a kid usually and they kind of point you know they say you gotta go that way the technique the basic I think for most musicians we have a sound in our head and then how it's gotta get out of your head and usually you need somebody to help you so those are the people I always think of as the people who kind of lift you up I think for me I had two main pivotal points in terms of influence in my music trajectory and one of them was my jazz teacher back in Brazil he was a violinist from Uruguay his name was Rodolfo Padilla and he basically opened my eyes to the possibility of using like you can read music so read these charts in here to have these solos by Django Reinhardt last learn Django Reinhardt music note by note I was learning stuff by ear and then for you to know everything he was doing read the chart and then kind of like proof it with your ear and then moving forward the path that I'm following right now my influence is right here Mr. Caldwell because like I said in 2012 when I met him I was like focused on becoming a jazz musician and becoming a jazz guitarist and focusing on transitioning from playing Django Reinhardt and gypsy jazz swing music to playing West Montgomery and he said like just think about it you have all of this so maybe you can just blend them together and that's where I met right now using the classical technique using the pick technique and just like doing like solo guitar and composition blending everything together you know so like those two guys for me growing up in Cuba and Rafael can attest to that I think we all had one huge reference it was Leo Brower and Leo Brower of course if you did not work directly with him you worked indirectly with him I was I consider Joaquin Klerch my older brother and I would with 12 years old take lessons with him even though he's just he was just 16 at the time but he took lessons directly with him and I think he brought the sense of a broader sense to the guitar meaning that the musical heroes were not only Segovia or guitars but now there were it was Horowitz or it was Rubinstein or it was Hacha Heifetz that made us listen to other things orchestral works and stuff that will you know make us think outside of the box and you know treat the guitar as more of an orchestra which has been described like that for other composers but I think that was important also that the fact that he was a composer and the fact that he also worked with popular musicians you know he had the Grupo de Experimentación Sonora worked with many songwriters and popular musicians and jazz musicians where they all will just get together and brainstorm and do compositions under his leadership and he taught then you know the basics of music form and you know and polyphonic texture and counterpoint and harmony and everything else to all these musicians they had no idea so I think that that is our main reference I wouldn't have to say well within New Orleans particularly for my technique and my ability to play I think Elias did more than any other person and by the way he brought Leo Brower here and smuggled his Torres guitar out of Cuba which I'm sure you've heard the story but and that was a great master class as well Snook's Eaglin to me showed me the joy I mean he was just a brilliant player but great groove great player but he just had this way of making you I call it an epiphany I have these at Jazz Fest where only at this place and time only here I'm sure maybe he's experienced them in jazz funerals I do when they sing out fly away I just melt Snook's brought that to the table every time I ever heard him play or talk to him he just had that I guess you could call it entertainment but it was feeling and I think that's the thing that sometimes I forget you know is how people respond to you by the feeling and not by the technique or anything and I think Snook's brought that for me always brought it back to me thank you appreciate that very good well I don't want to keep anybody much longer because we have a great performance at the chapel by the winner of the Lias Barrero Young Artist Competition the last winner so Samuel Heinz is going to be playing a wonderful program now at noon so I invite everybody to be there and go and enjoy also the concerts we have tonight by Nick Chiraldo, Jake Kachersky, Lina Morita and tomorrow by maestros Rafael Padrón and Javier Garcia Bredugo tonight is at 7.30 at the Recital Hall tomorrow 7.30 at the Recital Hall and then Friday we close with Cristian Puy Flamenco and Mahmoud Moroccan music so it's a little bit the African influences in the guitar in Northern African influences so I think that it's a great program wonderful possibility of showcasing different types Recital Hall means Dixon well the Dixon Recital Hall which is a smaller one tonight and tomorrow we close it at the Dixon Hall with the Flamenco alright well thank you so so much thank you Lisa for giving us the opportunity I think this is a wonderful thing